Daniil Kopylov is a pianist born on 6 March 1970 in Moscow. He studied from 1979 to 1988 at the Central Special Music School in the class of N. A. Toporov, then from 1988 to 1993 at the Moscow Conservatory in the class of Lev Naumov. From 1993 to 1995 he continued in postgraduate assistant training with Naumov and also studied at the International Piano Academy "Incontri col maestro" in Imola in the class of Lazar Berman.
He became a prize-winner and diploma recipient at a number of major international piano competitions. In 1992 he received a diploma at the Queen Sonja International Competition in Oslo. In 1993 he won third prize at the Prague Spring International Competition, in 1994 third prize at the international competition in Monza, in 1995 he was a finalist and diploma recipient at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels, in 1996 he won third prize at the Alessandro Casagrande Competition in Terni, and in 1997 he was a finalist and diploma recipient at the Clara Haskil Competition in Vevey.
Since 1996 Kopylov has taught at the Moscow Conservatory as an assistant to Lev Naumov, and from 2005 he has had his own class there. From 2002 he also taught at the Maimonides State Classical Academy and at the F. Chopin Moscow State University of Music. He participated in the training of prize-winners of international competitions, among them Alexander Kobrin, Lim Dong-min, Lim Dong-hyek, S. Khegay, Pavel Gintov, G. Ivanov, and P. Dombrovsky.
As a concert pianist, he has performed extensively in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania, Germany, Italy, Belgium, France, the United States, Switzerland, and Greece. He took part in chamber music festivals in Rome, Milan, and Moscow. He appeared with the North Bohemian Philharmonic and Ostrava Philharmonic in 1993, the Liège Philharmonic in 1995, the Iași Philharmonic in 1995, the Kharkiv Philharmonic in 1995, the Umbria Chamber Orchestra in 1996, the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra in 1997, and the A. P. Borodin Symphony Orchestra in Moscow from 1998 to 2003.
From the 1990s he also appeared on radio and television in Belgium, France, and the Czech Republic. He has given master classes in Russia, Kazakhstan, Greece, Italy, and Switzerland. Critics described his playing as combining clarity of form with rhapsodic freedom, emotional control with expressive warmth, and a noble pianistic eloquence free of vulgarity.